


To Those Who'd Ground Me

by Daisiestdaisy (Doyle)



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Family, Future Fic, Gen, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-21 01:35:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17633582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doyle/pseuds/Daisiestdaisy
Summary: An encounter with a mysterious figure dressed as some kind of bat leaves Oswald and Ed in a difficult spot. Luckily they have someone to call for backup.





	To Those Who'd Ground Me

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a certain set of spoilery set pictures: https://www.cbr.com/gotham-finale-set-photos-penguin-riddler-costumes/

It wasn’t such a long way down. Fifteen feet, maybe? Even if there was a catastrophic failure in the rope lashing him to Ed, or Ed to the lamppost, they’d suffer a few broken bones, at worst.

Oswald had told himself very firmly that this was true and didn’t plan on giving Ed, with his science degree and his forensics experience, any opening to correct him. Fury was always better than fear, so from the moment their mysterious attacker had vanished back into the shadows Oswald had been letting fly a tirade cursing it, and their bad fortune in it pursuing them, and the weather, and whatever else came to mind to distract him from the empty air beneath his dangling feet.

“When I get my hands around that creature’s throat, if it even has a throat…” Oswald paused. Speaking of hands – they were back to back, and his fists were jammed against Ed’s, and while the gloves and the creeping numbness in his tied arms made it hard to tell for sure, it felt like Ed was rapidly tapping his fingers together, over and over again. “Ed?”

“Mm?” Distracted. He hadn’t said anything more complex than “Right” or “Uh-huh” in some time, and he only did that with his hands when he was distressed.

Oswald forgot his own discomfort and anger and the _small_ amount of fright he might possibly feel as he remembered Ed’s terror of being held immobile, those old nightmares of the torture he’d suffered years ago in Hugo Strange’s lair. “Ed,” he said, “dear, it’s going to be fine. Try not to worry.”

“One second,” Ed said distantly. Oswald tried to rotate his wrist to touch their fingers together, offering what little comfort he could.

“Done,” Ed announced. “Help is on the way.”

“What?”

“New addition to my outfit.” He’d stopped moving his hands. “A tiny radio transmitter in my glove. Tap the thumb and forefinger together and it sends out a signal.”

“A signal to where?” He had sudden awful visions of every cop in the city converging on them to point and laugh, and maybe even worse, to arrest them.

“It’s a very specific frequency,” Ed told him. “Just one recipient, who _you_ said was never going to need a working knowledge of Morse code, and this is _exactly_ why I insisted.”

Oswald let out a laugh, allowing himself to relax into the relief of being practically saved. “This is why I’ve always let you take a lead on his education,” he said. “A distress signal you can reach even with your hands tied; have I told you today what a brilliant, perfect mind you have? Whoever sold us out to that… that _fiend_ doesn’t stand a chance of hiding from you.”

Ed didn’t say anything. He made a small noise that might have been modest acknowledgement, but that wasn’t at all his style. He lived for compliments about what a clever and cunning and handsome Riddler he was, and that one should have had him preening and fishing for more. Oswald risked moving enough to tap his heel against his partner’s leg. “Ed? Did you hear what I said?”

“Martin should be here soon,” Ed said.

“Well, we can hope he was still studying at the library, but if he was already home it could take...”

“He’s a great kid, isn’t he?”

“Ed, where is this going?”

“I just think,” Ed said, “that while we’re here, waiting, we might want to just take a minute to think about how lucky we are to have a good life and a perfect son. And that after everything we’ve gone through, we still love each other. Eternally. And, more importantly, unconditionally. Despite any little… missteps we might sometimes make.”

Oswald looked down for a minute at the sidewalk, gently swaying a long way beneath his feet. “Ed,” he finally said, with an even tone but without making any foolish promises like ‘just tell me and I won’t be mad’: “What – exactly – did you do?”

**

Oswald had been raised by just his mother, Ed just his father, but even without firsthand experience of a two-parent family they’d both agreed early on that they shouldn’t fight in front of their son. They’d always held to that. Even now, with Martin grown to twenty years old. Even when Ed had done something as impossibly stupid as to make himself, and therefore Oswald, bait for the Gotham underworld’s latest urban legend because he “just wanted to know”.

It meant Oswald was forced to shut up and just fume silently on the inside as Martin appeared from somewhere with a stepladder and set to examining their bonds. Parenthood seemed to be filled with these sacrifices.

Martin was on his blind side, so Oswald couldn’t catch every word he signed, but “ _allowance_ ” plus that little smirk was enough to let him fill in the rest. Oh, he was not in the mood for this.

“It is absolutely _not_ a good time to negotiate your allowance, young man, and this is not funny!”

Martin stretched out his right arm and fist to where Oswald could see, thumb and forefinger extended and a little apart. _Tiny bit funny._

Oswald sputtered in outrage, and regretted it when his legs kicked futilely over far too much empty air. “And keep both hands on that ladder,” he ordered, suddenly reminded how far they were from the sidewalk. Of course, Martin’s balance was perfect, he’d been clambering over rooftops and museum balconies helping Ed with heists while he was still in grade school, but a father was entitled to worry.

“He says he only has two hands,” Ed said helpfully after a moment. “So he can keep them on the ladder or he can cut the ropes. Your call.”

Oswald exhaled hard through his nose. “Martin, darling,” he said, drawing on all of the vast reserves of patience and tranquility he’d had to cultivate while raising a too-clever teenager, “maybe we could at least hold the casual conversation until we’re all on the ground?”

It seemed to take an eternity. It was like one of the logic puzzles Ed and Martin liked doing together but that Oswald could never see the point to, nonsense about lambs and wolves crossing rivers – detach him from Ed, and Ed from the lamppost, and get both of them and Martin safely to the ground without overloading the ladder or anyone falling and breaking their neck, and do all of it fast enough that some civically-minded dog-walker didn’t happen upon them and call the GCPD.

“I am going to wring that maniac’s neck,” Oswald announced, holding out a hand to help Martin down that his son ignored. “I’ll string _him_ from a lamppost. Better yet, a dozen lampposts, all the way from here to the Lounge.”

Ed rubbed his shoulder, either to soothe him or to try to fix the mess of wrinkles the ropes had inflicted on his jacket. Oswald shrugged him off, shooting him a look meant to convey that they were nowhere near done with their discussion about the idiocy of bringing trouble down on their heads on purpose.

Martin, whose own suit and hat were still immaculate, hopped down the last few rungs and excitedly signed, “ _Did you get a good look at him? Did he speak? Is he really a bat?”_

“Thank you, we’re both fine, your concern for your parents is very touching.”

“Definitely not one of Langstrom’s bat creatures,” Ed said over him. “I think he’s a man in a costume. But tall, broad, fast, _very_ strong. Maybe you were on the right track with your Hugo Strange theory.”

Martin made a sign that Oswald didn’t know. “Exceptional… person?” he guessed, puzzled.

“Metahuman,” Ed said. “Like Freeze or Ivy. People with powers. Good word, right? We made it up. It’s one theory about what the Bat is – assuming all the sightings are the same being, and we’re not dealing with copycats.”

“ _Copybats,_ ” Martin finger-spelled, because he was far too much his father’s son.  

A suspicion was starting to nag at the back of Oswald’s mind. “It sounds like you two have had a lot of talks about this bat-creature.”

Martin nodded enthusiastically, and now Oswald noticed the battered old Polaroid camera Ed had given him for his thirteenth birthday strung around his neck by its strap.

“You got here _very_ fast after Ed sent his message.”

“You were right, he was at the library. Lucky for us.”

“And you had a stepladder at the library because…”

“He probably held up a hardware store on the way,” Ed said, Martin signing “ _Held up a hardware store_ ” just a beat behind him.

“Really,” Oswald said, not even trying to sound like he believed a single word of this. “You found and held up a hardware store, at midnight, in the heart of the Diamond District…”

Martin lifted his hands as if to say something.

“…that’s what you’re telling me, remembering that we don’t lie to each other in this family.”

Martin lowered his hands back to his side again. He and Ed gave each other a sheepish sidelong look.

Oswald threw up his hands. “So you were in on this too,” he said. “I take it you were supposed to hide somewhere high and get a picture as this ‘meta human’ attacked us?”

“In our defence, he swooped in before Martin could get in position and…”

“How is that a defence, Ed?!” Not in front of the child, Oswald reminded himself, and breathed. “We can all talk about this at home,” he said, sounding calmer even if he didn’t feel it.

“Sorry, Oswald.”

“ _Sorry, Dad_.”

The fact that it was just ‘sorry’ instead of the usual ‘sorry you’re mad’ actually helped soothe his hurt feelings a little, and both of them did look downcast. He wondered how much of that was guilt at lying to him and putting him and themselves in danger versus disappointment that their idiotic scheme hadn’t come off.

But… there was no real harm done, really. And it was always useful to know about a new player in town. And how many parents of boys Martin’s age could say that their son still wanted to spend time with them and share his interests? Ed’s little speech about how lucky they were had been self-serving, but none of it was untrue.

Oswald straightened his lapels, as if brushing away the indignities the evening had visited on him. “If we ever tangle with this costumed menace again,” he said, “we’re going to do it…” _My way_ , had been his first thought, but that wasn’t how it worked when you were part of a family. “We do it together.”

Ed and Martin’s grins were perfectly matched.

Oswald promised, “The Bat won’t even know what’s hit him.”

 

 

 


End file.
